Lindsay D. from PLANO, TX
Reviewed on 8/27/2010...
This is great for a preschooler.
Charlie is a cute little animated garbage truck that is "visiting his dad at [dad's] job". Charlie directly addresses the audience, and asks the questions the kids will have. There are lots of shots of the important thing: Garbage trucks picking cans up and dumping them in the hopper. The video also gives the names different types of trucks and the names of some of the parts.
My toddler son (2.5) LOVES this video.
However, there are points where he gets bored because the videographer decided to get fancy, freeze the frame, and scroll around the image. A preschooler or even kindergartner might like that opportunity to see parts of the truck (or the gas hose, or whatever) up close, but a toddler is just frustrated because he can't see the whole truck. I also have some other nitpicks - for instance, the actors are horrible, but your preschooler isn't going to know that - the most important of which is that they give the names of things but don't spell out what the distinctions are. For example, they show a front end loader and a side arm loader, and give the names, but don't explain for the little kids "it's called a front end loader because the arms are in the FRONT of the truck"... etc.
But those are minor issues.
When I have to answer "Where's Charlie Trash Truck go?" ten times a day, I'm pretty sure the DVD is a winner.